Meta modifies advertising approach in favor of data protection on Facebook and Instagram

Meta Platforms will implement a series of changes in the advertising section to comply with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (RGPD) of the European Union, so that users have greater control over the personal information that their services handle. and decide the type of advertisements they receive.

The company has been under investigation for months under data protection breaches after the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) launched an investigation into Meta Platforms Ireland Limited’s data collection and protection processes. (MPIL), after the discovery of a leak of personal data of 533 users of its services. This leak would not come from a leak or a malicious attack, but through the ‘scraping’ technique. That is, an automated collection of data from a website or an application.

This Irish organization, the main regulator of Meta in Europe in terms of data protection, imposed a fine of 265 million euros at the end of last year for these events, since it considers this practice “unacceptable” and that it goes against company rules.

In January of this year, on the other hand, the DPC announced another fine valued at 390 million euros for the management of data from its two main social networks, Facebook and Instagram, since it considered that the company had not “clearly” informed the users. Now Meta Platforms plans to reorient the policy and administration of ads to comply with the European regulations required by this body, a new approach that will be introduced as of April 5.

The technology company has indicated that it will change the legal basis it uses to process certain data of origin (‘first party’) considered until now of ‘Contractual necessity’ so that it is a compilation that is due to ‘legitimate interests’, in order to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation.

Meta will make legal changes related to advertising

Meta has stressed that “this legal change does not prevent personalized advertising or affect the way in which advertisers, companies or users experience” with their products, as can be read in an update on their blog.

Starting this Wednesday, the manufacturer will offer users in member countries a new option that filters the advertising they receive, which will be measured by general aspects, such as location or age range. Users may or may not authorize the platform to use additional information such as the interactions they carry out on Facebook and Instagram to provide them with information that may be of interest to them.

Those who choose not to participate in this information collection must submit a withdrawal form in which they specify why they prefer not to have personalized ads based on their interactions, according to The Wall Street Journal.

This newspaper recalls that Meta “has been around for a long time” allowing users to use their privacy settings to opt out of personalized ads based on the data it collects about their activity on other websites and applications. However, until now, it was not possible to disable this setting for ads based on your activity on Meta platforms.

Meta has commented, for its part, that “relevant users” will be notified of this change and has recalled that this legal basis for data collection and processing is used by similar platforms and that it will update its EU Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. However, it has insisted that it considers that its previous approach “complied with the GDPR” and that it continues its appeal of the sentences issued by the DPC for which these fines are imposed. With this, it has qualified that this change guarantees that it complies with the decision of this regulatory body.

Source: dpa

(Reference image source: dole777, Unsplash)

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